Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:24:57 +0000

Apple, Google gain in US smart phone market, comScore says, as BlackBerry, Microsoft decline

February 8th, 2010 more images more imagesComScore: Apple gains US smart phone shareRESTON, Va. — Apple Inc.'s iPhone gained a percentage point of U.S.

Why don't we see too many mobile phone virus?

May 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A major reason why mobile phones have been relatively free of virus attacks is that the market is widely split, unlike in computer software, where one firm controls a large chunk of the market, scientists point out. If you own a computer, you are likely to be familiar with a nasty virus attack at some point.

Dell shows off smart phone 'prototype' at China Mobile event in Beijing

August 17th, 2009 Dell developing smart phone for China MobileROUND ROCK, Texas — PC maker Dell Inc. is working on a smart phone for China Mobile Ltd., China's biggest cell phone carrier.

Analyst: Motorola gadgets holding own in crowded smart phone market

January 6th, 2010 more images more images Ahead of the Bell: Motorola phones holding own NEW YORK — Motorola Inc.'s smart phones are holding their own in an increasingly crowded field, an Oppenheimer & Co. analyst said Wednesday.

Nokia to ax 285 jobs, streamline operations at handset plant in Finland

February 8th, 2010 more images more imagesNokia to ax 285 jobs in FinlandHELSINKI — Nokia Corp. said Monday it will lay off 285 people in Finland, as the world's largest mobile phone maker strives to cut costs and streamline operations.

Sprint to start selling phone with Google's Android software on Oct. 11

September 3rd, 2009 Sprint to start selling phone with Google softwareNEW YORK — Sprint Nextel Corp. is releasing a phone sporting Google Inc.'s Android software on Oct.

Microsoft, Nokia agree to bring big versions of Office programs to tiny smart phone screens

August 12th, 2009 Microsoft to put Office programs on Nokia phonesSEATTLE — Microsoft is working with Nokia to put Office software and other programs on smart phones. The companies say people will be able to read, edit and create new Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote programs on Nokia smart phones, which run an operating system called Symbian that competes with Microsoft Corp.'s own Windows Mobile.

Dell is working on a smart phone for AT&T that runs Google's Android system, report says

October 7th, 2009 Report: Dell to make Android phone for AT&TSEATTLE — Dell Inc. is working on a "smart" phone for AT&T that runs Google Inc.'s Android phone operating system, according to a newspaper report Wednesday.

Smart phones boost Nokia as 4th quarter profits grow 65 percent despite slump in sales

January 28th, 2010 more images more images Smart phones boost Nokia as profits grow 65 pct HELSINKI — The world's biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia Corp., on Thursday said strong sales of smart phones and lower costs helped profits rise 65 percent in the fourth quarter despite a drop in total revenue. The better-than-expected report sent Nokia shares surging and suggested that the cell phone industry is recovering from the impact of the global financial crisis.

China says no limits on phone company use of Google's Android amid censorship dispute

January 26th, 2010 more images more images more images more images more images China says no limits on use of Google's Android BEIJING — China tried Wednesday to assure mobile phone companies using Google's Android operating system that they won't be hurt by a dispute over Web censorship, saying the technology will be allowed if it complies with regulations. Google Inc. postponed the launch of its own smart phone in China following its Jan.

Google and other challengers advance as smart phone software begins to overshadow hardware

February 11th, 2010 more images more imagesChallengers gain in important phone software fightAs smart phones increasingly appear alike, with high-end models mostly taking their cues from Apple Inc.'s iPhone, more and more it's the software they run that makes a difference. A growing number of operating systems are jostling for the attention of phone buyers and manufacturers.

Palm's 2nd-quarter loss and weaker smart phone sales disappoint investors, shares slide

December 17th, 2009 more images more imagesPalm posts wider than expected 2Q lossSUNNYVALE, Calif. — Smart phone maker Palm Inc.

Dell to sell Android phone in US on AT&T and plans to use gadget show for tablet concept

January 6th, 2010 more images more imagesDell to enter US smart phone market with AT&TLAS VEGAS — Dell Inc. is wading into the U.S.

Verizon Wireless, Google in partnership to develop new Android smart phones

October 6th, 2009 Verizon Wireless, Google in Android partnershipNEW YORK — Verizon Wireless said Tuesday it will put substantial resources into developing and selling phones that use Google Inc.'s Android software. Verizon Wireless had already said it would sell Android phones, but the announcement suggests that the carrier is positioning these "smart" phones as a main means of competing with Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T Inc.

Dell enters smart phone market, with Mini 3 to debut this month in deal with China Mobile

November 13th, 2009 more images more images Dell smart phone to debut in China, Brazil SEATTLE — Dell Inc. is officially jumping into the "smart" phone market this month in a deal with China's biggest wireless carrier, China Mobile Ltd.

Another geeky post…

In my last post, I described the relative merits of managing configuration in a repository vs. in the file system but excluded presentation templates even though how they are managed is just as interesting. Like configuration, presentation templates can be managed in the file system or in the content repository. Like with configuration, if you manage presentation templates in the repository, you need some way to deploy them from one instance of your site to another without moving the content over as well.

There are plenty of additional reasons why you would want to manage presentation templates on the file system. In particular, presentation templates are code and you want to be able to use proven coding tools and techniques to manage them. Good developers will be familiar with using a source code management system to synchronize their local work areas and branch/tag the source tree. Development tools (IDE’s and text editors) are designed to work on files in a local file system. If you manage presentation templates in the repository you have to solve all sorts of problems like branching and merging and building a browser-based IDE or integrating with local IDEs. The latter can be done through WebDAV and I have also seen customers use an Ant builder in Eclipse to push a file with every time it has changed. Still, the additional complexity can create frustrating issues when the deployment mechanism breaks.

As much as it complicates the architecture, there is one very good case when you would want to manage presentation templates in the repository: when you have a centralized CMS instance that supports multiple, independently developed sub-sites. For example, lets say you are a university and each school or department has its own web developer that wants to design and implement his own site design. This developer is competent and trustworthy but you don’t want to give him access to deploy his own code directly to the filesystem of the production server. He could accidentally break another site or, worse, bring down the whole server. You could centralize the testing and deployment of code, but that would just create a bottleneck. You could do something like put the CSS and JS in the repository and have him go all CSS Zen Garden, but sooner or later he will want to edit the HTML in the presentation templates.

In this scenario of distributed, delegated development, presentation templates are like content into two very important aspects:

1. presentation templates need access control rules to determine who can edit what.
2. presentations templates become user input (and user input should never be trusted).

The second point is really important. Just like you need to think twice when you allow a content contributor to embed potentially malicious javascript into pages, you need to worry that a delegated template developer can deploy potentially dangerous server side code. Once that code is on the filesystem of an environment it can create all sorts of mischief. It doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not, if a programmer codes an infinite loop or compromises security, you have a problem. Using templating languages (like Smarty or Velocity) rather than a full programming language (like PHP or Java in JSP) will mitigate that risk but you still have to worry about the developer uploading a script that can run on your server. With staging and workflow, CMSs are good at managing semi-trusted content like presentation templates from distributed independent developers. There is a clear boundary between the runtime of the site and the underlying environment.

If your CMS uses file-system based presentation templates and you delegate sub-site development to the departments who own them, you should definitely put in place some sort of automated deployment mechanism that keeps FTP and SSH access out of the developers hands and reduces the potential for manual error. The following guidelines are worth following:

• Code should always be deployed out of a source code system (via a branch or a tag). That way you will know what was deployed and you can redeploy the same tested code to different environments.
• Deployments should be scripted. The scripts can manage the logic of what should be put where.
• Every development team should have an integration environment where they can test code.

One of my clients uses a product called AnthillPro for deployments of all web applications and also presentation templates. It has taken a while to standardize and migrate all of the development teams but now I don’t see how you can have a de-centralized development organization without it.

The other dimension to this problem is the coupling between the content model and the presentation templates. When you add an attribute to a content type, you need to update the presentation template to show it (or use it in some other way). The deployment of new presentation templates needs to be timed with content updates. Often content contributors will want to see the new attribute in preview when they are updating their content. Templates also need to fail gracefully when they request an attribute that does not yet exist or has not been populated yet. Typically, presentation templates evolve more rapidly than content models. After all, a change in a content model usually involves some manual content entry. In my scenario of the university, there is a benefit of centralizing the ownership of the content model. This allows content sharing across sites: if one department defines a news item differently than another department, it is difficult to have a combined news feed. Centralizing the content model will further slow its evolution because there needs to be alignment between the different departments.

Wow, two geeky posts in a row. I promise the next one will be less technical.

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This entry was posted by Seth Gottlieb on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 6:38 am and is filed under architecture, development. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.